Blessings
by butterflymind
Summary: Set postTAC and a sequel to my story 'The Old World.' You will have to read that to understand this. Lynda, Spike and Kenny get used to the way the world changes.


It looked stupid, there was no way around that. The top was slightly bowed by the sloping ceiling, the bottom shoved in a metal bucket and propped round with books to keep it upright. It was huge in the tiny room, a giant cone of needle filled menace that shook occasionally in the breeze from a window that never quite closed.

But it was still a Christmas tree. So it didn't matter that it had the majority share of the living room, or that whenever he passed by it to open the door it released a ballistic flurry of needles and ornaments. He had probably made up for every missed Christmas tree in his childhood just redecorating this one after each malicious bauble shower.

There was little else in the room to indicate the holidays, a couple of bits of tinsel had been draped over picture frames, a pile of cards and a flashing Santa on the coffee table that had waved its arms to 'we wish you a merry Christmas' until Lynda had forcibly removed the batteries and dropped them into the street below. But it was damned cold, which was a bit of a give away. Spike leaned over to the truculent window and yanked hard on the string attached to the frame. Grumpily he tied it to a nail he had embedded in the wall over the summer, the string pulled taut but it held and he plucked it gently before twisting his body to slide onto the couch, narrowly avoiding a left hook from a tree branch. Next year, he decided, it was either going to have to be a smaller tree or a bigger apartment.

"Spike you in here?" A voice called to him from the other side of the forest.

"Yeah." Kenny's face appeared round the edge of the tree looking pale and bleary eyed.

"Lynda bought the tree then." He said, removing a branch from his collar.

"How'd you guess?"

"Practice. Biggest one in the shop?"

"And there was this other guy…" Kenny was nodding, an amused smile on his face.

"Where is the mistress anyway?" he asked.

"Gone out, something about late night news-stands." Kenny scrubbed a hand over his face and collapsed against the back of the sofa.

"Good, don't think I could cope for at least another half and hour." He looked at Spike quizzically. "What time is it?"

"Nearly two. How's the jet lag?"

"I'm getting there." He looked around. "Nice place." Spike raised an amused eyebrow.

"Thanks, you've only been in it seven hours."

"And I can tell you your duvets are lovely. I like it." He gestured vaguely about himself, "It's very…"

"Tiny?"

"Compact. All sloping ceilings and…" At that moment a particularly strong gust of wind caught the window and yanked on the string, banging the window against the frame. "…ventilation."

"Any other ways you could point out we live in an attic?"

"Not without a ladder." Kenny smiled and silence fell, not awkward but with distance contained within it as they groped through the things which had changed. Most of their common ground was still out harassing a shopkeeper.

Kenny reached out for the pile of envelopes on the table, his eye caught by an Australian postmark.

"Not put the Christmas cards up then?" Spike broke his reverie and glanced over.

"Haven't got the space." He replied. Kenny was shuffling through the pile.

"Merry Christmas, at least you now have something in common with Jesus." He read and flipped the card over to look at the front. "Has Tiddler forgiven you yet?" Spike smiled.

"I think Lynda making sure they were the ones who broke the story helped." His grin grew slightly wider, his eyes twinkling. "Giving it to Tids a week before the editor interviews helped even more." Kenny chuckled and sorted through the stack again. One from Lynda's mother, one from his mother, one from Spike's grandparents all with a Norbridge postmark. A fourth Norbridge card caught his eye. It was flimsy, more folded paper than a card and the design was a bold logo.

"Colin sent you a card?" He asked incredulously. Spike laughed shortly, eyes torn between irritation and amusement. He pointed to one of the few areas of space not taken up with tree. Two cardboard boxes were neatly stacked there.

"Came with two boxes of headless dolls and a note to meet a man called Dave at wharf nine, 3 am, December 20th."

"CM enterprises go international?"

"Something like that. Anyhow, Dave wasn't there so we're stuck with them."

"You actually went?" Spike looked at him, exasperated.

"Lynda wanted to investigate. I didn't want her to upset anybody." He sighed. "So we went."

Kenny laughed, but he left it alone for now. The cards passed through his hands, he recognised Sarah's loopy handwriting on a purple envelope and then paused as he returned to the one with the Australian postmark. His hands skimmed the edges, following the torn line of the paper and before he really knew what he was doing he had the card open in his hands, his eyes scanning over words he already knew. His thumb tracked over the names at the bottom and for the first time in days, his eyes filled with tears. Spike was watching him, his breathing stilled.

"You ok?" The silence broke with the sound of distant thunder. Kenny folded the card and forced himself to put it down without thrusting it away.

"Coping." He said simply. "I'm good at coping."

"Did you speak to her before you left?" Kenny's laughter had gained a bitter edge.

"No, I was on the plane before the shock wore off." He was staring at his hands, following the twisting fingers. "D'you know what I said to her? When she told me?" Spike shook his head. "I asked why she couldn't have kept lying until after New Years." The bitter laugh surfaced again. "How pathetic am I?"

"What did she say?" It wasn't the question Spike had meant to ask but it fitted the space.

"She told me that I was too nice. Too nice for her." Kenny sighed. "Death by niceness, story of my life." Spike felt a dozen platitudes rise and fall from him lips in a second but Kenny saved him by speaking again. "A year. We'd been together a year and she'd been seeing this guy for six months. Hell of a time to have a fit of honesty." Spike wondered to himself how you could fail to notice your girlfriend was having an affair for six months, he'd still been a teenager when he'd learnt what a delicate balancing act two timing was. But then he looked at Kenny again and could see all too easily how it had happened. He was surprised at the fierce feeling of protectiveness that surged through him with that thought. Now he had even less of an idea what to say than before and he wished like hell that Lynda was here.

"Hang on a minute, why is she looking for newspapers at this time of night?" The question broke so neatly into Spike's train of thought it took him a second to recover.

"She wants to see if her piece is in yet."

"Her piece?" Kenny looked faintly incredulous. "You travelled three and a half thousand miles and she still found someone to write for?" He paused for a second. "And she's writing herself?" Spike smiled.

"Comment. Editorial when she's not the Editor. Don't worry, I haven't let her loose on the good citizens of New York." He settled back into the sofa. "It's just some local community paper, but at least it's something."

"Made her easier to live with?" Kenny grinned, Spike regarded him seriously.

"Kenny, for the first six months she wasn't allowed to work at all. She was at home. Alone. Most of the time." Kenny looked around himself and let out a breath. "Yeah, exactly." Spike said.

"I'm impressed you've got some many walls left." Kenny replied. Spike cracked half a grin, then the scratch of a key at the door caused them both to look round.

"Four shops." The sentence started outside the door and continued as she walked into the room. "And the creepy man in the kiosk on the corner." She waved the paper in her hand. "I don't know how they expect to get anywhere with circulation like that." She dodged the Christmas tree and sat down between them. "Maybe I should ring Jeff and tell him to..." Spike's hand shot to the top of the phone.

"Two a.m. Lynda. Do it in the morning." Lynda folded her arms across her chest but didn't argue.

"You're up then." She said to Kenny. He smiled.

"It's nice to see you too."

"I've seen you, it was just drooling gently onto my duvet."

"Well next time I'll try to arrange international time zones to your liking shall I?"

"Good, I wanted you to sub my piece this morning."She unfolded the paper. "I don't trust these Americans, they keep removing the U's from my work indiscriminately."

"Lynda Day, International ambassador." Spike said and pattered her on the arm.

"Tea? Before I lose my temper?"

"I didn't know it still bothered coming back." Spike muttered, but he hauled himself off the sofa and limboed under a branch. She turned to Kenny.

"You OK?" Her voice was soft and it was such a rare sound that his eyes filled with tears again, but he nodded. "Good. I'm on hand for minor violence or verbal flaying if you need me." He smiled. "I never liked her anyway." Kenny raised his eyebrows.

"You never met her."

"So, never stopped me before." She looked round to the door before leaning in to give him a quick hug. "Merry Christmas."

"Thanks." Her eyes glanced down to the pile of cards, where his still lay on top of its envelope.

"Checking she hasn't been sending letter bombs in your name?"

"Something like that." He thought for a second. "Mind you, you're the only person I've ever met who would actually think of it."

"It's nice to know I'm keeping the standard up." She idly thumbed through the cards as he had done. Eventually she pulled out the vivid purple envelope.

"Did you get one from Sarah?" Kenny nodded.

"Yep. All about how she was finding journalism a great course and really enjoying university."

"She's hating it isn't she."

"That's what I got."

"I told her not to go." Kenny looked at her but didn't point out that telling Sarah not to go to University had had nothing to do with what Sarah wanted. Old habits were hard to break.

"Talking about Sarah?" Spike appeared through the foliage balancing three cups. Lynda nodded. "I guess theoretical journalism just doesn't cut it after the real thing." He passed two cups out and sipped his own. "But she'll be better qualified than you." He grinned at Lynda.

"Theoretically." Lynda replied without smiling. She tucked the card back into the envelope. "Billy sent us some computer message."

"What did it say?" Kenny asked. Spike shrugged.

"We don't know, Couldn't find a computer we could read it on."

"Then how do you know he sent it?"

"He rang to tell us." Lynda replied, smiling. Kenny laughed. He looked at the pile of cards again.

"Nothing from Frazz?"

"It's a level of organisation he's probably not capable of." Lynda said, but Spike replied.

"He did call." Lynda turned to him.

"He did?"

"While you weren't here."

"How well managed of him." Spike sighed.

"I don't think he could possibly have done it deliberately." Kenny found himself resuming a well rehearsed role as diffuser of arguments.

"How was he?"

"Ok. He said Merry Christmas. To both of us." Spike said pointedly. Kenny leaned back and closed his eyes for a second.

"It all seems so long ago." He murmured, more to himself than anyone else.

"It is for you." Lynda replied. Spike shot her a look and she bit back her next sentence. Silence stretched, but was broken suddenly when the tied window sprang open, the string snapping. Snow blew in as the wind whipped around the room. Spike grabbed the flapping pane and pulled hard on the window frame to keep it closed whilst Kenny tied the two ends of the string together. The snow was falling fast but melting as it hit the street below, streaks of grey half frozen slush forming on the road.

"Bloody snow." Lynda shivered.

"Wouldn't have seen this back home." Kenny said, looking up at the sky.

"Worth coming all this way for?" Lynda asked. Spike took his hand off the window, making sure the string held. He looked at his watch.

"It's nearly three." He turned to Lynda. "And your Mom is bound to mess up the time zones and phone at 7a.m again." Kenny yawned, perhaps a little two theatrically.  
"Yeah, I should probably get some sleep." Spike quirked an eyebrow at him but said nothing. As a group they manoeuvred around the tree.

"G'night." Spike said and patted Kenny on the back. He closed the bedroom door behind him. Lynda followed and then paused with her hand on the door.

"Goodnight. Will you be all right?"

"I'll get as much sleep as I can in the kitchen." He replied.

"There's a mattress and a sleeping bag." She said slightly defensively. "Besides, it's tea convenient."

"I know." Kenny was regarding her seriously and Lynda had to fight the urge to squirm away from his gaze. He patted her arm and she tensed.

"Lynda, are you happy here?" She wanted to look away from him, but her pride was holding her head up.

"Yes. Of course I am. I wouldn't be here otherwise." She did drop her eyes then but he shifted himself to grasp both her arms and turn him towards her. His eyes searched her face.

"Seriously. You seem happy. But are you happy here?" It was the sort of question she tried to avoid, but she looked into his face anyway. He had been gone along time, she had assumed that he would try to maintain the distance he had created. But he still looked like the boy who had buried her hamsters.

"As I can be." She replied, dipping her head. He smiled at her, didn't move to touch her again because he still knew better.

"Good. Goodnight. Merry Christmas." She turned and disappeared into the bedroom. Kenny surveyed the giant tree, the Christmas cards and the closed bedroom door.

"We count what blessings we have." He murmured.

It must have been nearly five a.m. Spike swore as he tripped over a pile of books and then fell through a Christmas tree, finally reaching the sofa in a novel head-first configuration. His goal was still ringing, loud enough to wake the dead but not apparently Lynda. He reached for it with one hand, rubbing his head with the other.

"Hello?" The connection sounded far away, he was never sure how you could tell with phone lines but he'd had enough practice to recognise a long distance call. For a second there were no words, then he heard an intake of breath.

"Spike?" The voice was English, familiar, but at five a.m on Christmas Day he couldn't place it.

"Yeah? Do you know it's five a.m here? We were..."

"Spike." There was the intake of breath again, short and hitched. "It's all gone wrong."


End file.
